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 By Peter T. Chattaway
“DOES this town need a hug?”
That was the question asked by Jon Stewart when he
hosted the Academy Awards last month, and it’s not hard to see why.
The films that bagged the most nominations were full of
death and dysfunction – and as Stewart himself noted, the perkiest,
most upbeat film among the best picture nominees happened to be a comedy
about teen pregnancy, i.e. Juno.
The ultimate winner was No
Country for Old Men, a challenging and
unconventional film about a hit man or serial killer – he
doesn’t commit all of his murders in the line of duty – who
pursues a man who stumbled upon a bag full of money.
Along the way, many, many people die, and the last word
belongs to an old sheriff who surveys the carnage and wonders what sense
the world makes any more.
The film is, in short, about the perceived absence of
God. And there is an interesting tension within the film –
adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from the novel by Cormac McCarthy –
between what we might call absurdism and fatalism.
Fatalism tells us our lives are meaningless because
nothing can change what’s going to happen to us, including the fact
that we will die. None of our choices will make any difference to our
ultimate fate, and it’s possible we don’t even have the freedom
of will to make true choices in the first place.
Absurdism tells us our lives are meaningless because
the things that happen to us, both good and bad, are random and
unpredictable – and ultimately, there is no one who can take the raw
data of our lives and hold it together in a narrative that will make any
meaningful sense.
What is striking about No
Country for Old Men is the way the random
occurrences – the accidents which interrupt the best-laid plans of
mice and men – begin to seem almost fated. There is even one scene
late in the film where some viewers have been able to predict a completely
out-of-the-blue ‘accident’ moments in advance.
Does this make the film doubly nihilistic? Or does the
film set two seemingly nihilistic sensibilities against each other, to show
that neither of them can possibly have the last word – and, perhaps,
to hint that meaning really does exist, somewhere?
Also worth noting is how the violence tends to be
fairly explicit at the beginning but, by the end, is kept mostly
off-camera. Is this, too, a sign of nihilism? Is the film simply reflecting
how numb we have become to the violence?
Is it saying that life is so meaningless that there
isn’t much point in putting the deaths of certain major characters
onscreen in the first place? Or is it encouraging us to contemplate what
the deaths mean, rather than dwell on the empty thrill of watching people
die?
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No Country for Old Men wasn’t
my own personal favourite of the past year; but it’s a good film,
worthy of repeat viewings and prolonged discussion – and it’s
certainly one of the better films to have received the Academy’s
blessing in recent years.
* * *
Speaking of personal favorites, it’s way past
time to compile my top 10 list for the past year. So, limiting my picks to
films which had regular theatrical releases in Vancouver beginning in 2007
– and with the caveat that I have seen most of these films only once,
and my opinion could change at any moment – here goes:
1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2
Days (director: Cristian Mungiu). A
remarkably unflinching and even-handed story about two women procuring an
illegal abortion in communist Romania, full of powerful moments and a
realism that you buy into completely.
2. Zodiac (director: David Fincher). Based on the true story of
the Zodiac Killer, this is a remarkable – and obsessive! –
study of obsession, the changes wrought by time in landscape and
technology, the relationship between the mass media and personal pathology,
and the elusive nature of both evil and justice.
3. There Will Be Blood (director: Paul Thomas Anderson). Worth seeing if only
for Daniel Day-Lewis’ intense, multi-layered, enigmatic and
over-the-top performance. But the fantastic cinematography, daring music
and supporting actors are good, too.
4. Juno (director: Jason Reitman). An amusing and, by the end,
surprisingly moving story about a pregnant teenage girl – who chooses
life, and finds maturity as well.
5. The Savages (director: Tamara Jenkins). I’m a sucker for
movies about adult brother-sister relationships, and this is a fine
specimen – starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as two
siblings with ‘issues,’ who have to look after their father.
6. The Lives of Others (director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck). An East
German spy gains a conscience while listening in on an idealistic
playwright and his girlfriend.
7. Atonement (director: Joe Wright). A girl who tells a lie
about her sister’s lover becomes a woman who can never forgive
herself for the damage she did. Devastating.
8. Lars and the Real Girl (director: Craig Gillespie). A
charming, emotionally engaging tale about a sweet church-going man, his
chaste relationship with a love doll, and the community that plays along to
help him deal with some psychological issues.
9. Into the Wild (director: Sean Penn). A rebellious young man leaves
the affluence of his parents behind in a romantic – and at times,
spiritual – quest for raw nature.
10. The King of Kong: A
Fistful of Quarters (director: Seth
Gordon). Two men battle for the right to claim the highest Donkey Kong
score in the world. An amusing, and even nostalgic, study of two very
different characters and the bizarre society they inhabit.
–
filmchatblog.blogspot.com
March 2008
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